Assimilation of Porygon
by SushiJaguar
Summary: The continuation of Origin of Porygon! A faceless enemy, a dubious friend, and Legendary intervention! In the midst of a rising conflict, hidden parties begin to spread their influence, and all is not right in Kanto.


Author's notes: Happy update day! I'm gonna hammer out my schedule here. Until the holidays, I'll be uploading on Mondays and Wednesdays. Once the summer hits in full force and we're not all bogged down with boring classes and work, I'm gonna update Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Three chapters a week! Hopefully, this arc will be nice and long, so if I update on time, expect it to last till July or so.

Also, you guys mind doing me a favour? If you want a little insight into how I write, anyway. Go to youtube, type into the search bar: The Editors, Back Room CD. Or, just check out Jason Mraz. I listen to both extensively when I'm writing. Typing. Whatever, just enjoy the chapter and have a good day!

(Yeah the chapter was late because I was watching the Live on Earth Mraz concert.)

Oh and welcome to arc two, Assimilation of Porygon. The title is indeed a hint at things to come.

**Chapter One: Live the Moment**

The newspaper fluttered miserably in the half-hearted breeze that plucked wearily at its papery folds. The date had been blotted away in the previous day's rainfall, and what little legible lettering remained only informed the rubble-strewn street that it was a week after the collapse of the Silph Building. The road was still clogged with debris and service vehicles of all kinds. Men roped into harnesses rappelled into long-unused sewer entrances to check for damage to crucial pipelines for gas and water. Women garbed in the uniform of the medical profession tended to the few wounded that had been pulled free that morning. It was unlikely there would be any more. Most of what was found after heavy sifting was mangled corpses, of Pokémon and human alike, bloodstained metal beams and chunks of rock. The bodies were removed, identified, and sent off for burial. Those crushed beyond recognition were simply tagged with meaningless, placeholder names and carted off to the morgue for forensic identification.

The mood was grim and sour, not even the blithe propaganda that the entirety of Team Rocket had been caught enough to raise the spirits of those who scrabbled over the ruined street like ants. Only the most hardy of people still remained, those with weaker stomachs and nerves having been assigned away days ago. The absence of sobbing and yelling was eerie and the silence weighed heavily on the backs of all the living, pressing down oppressively. A backhoe scraped away at the debris that had been cleared, loading it into a dumptruck that waited, engine purring in a satisfactory way. A call rang out, a weary, plaintive sort of sound, and a stretcher was carried over, black body bag at the ready. The corpse was zipped in, and whisked away.

Up above, a pair of octagonal eyes watched the proceedings unblinkingly. It was a simple matter for the Pokémon to pick out even the most minute of details thanks to his sophisticated suite of sensors and scanners. The pink-and-turquoise Pokémon shifted, swivelling away from the slow reclamation and flew through the skies, seeking to put as much distance between itself and Saffron City as possible.

"Do you have somewhere to be?" The core asked lazily, sounding somewhat patronising as Porygon came to a halt, finding itself in that curious position of talking to something that didn't quite exist in the real world.

"I have no specified destination." It replied, as patiently as it could. "You informed me I no longer have operational restrictions." The core rolled its eyes, or, projected an image of a formless sillouhette rolling its oval eyes.

"Just because you don't have anywhere to go, doesn't mean you're not rushing. Don't like hanging around humans, is it? I really would rather we stuck around Saffron a little longer." It said in a low, disappointed tone. Porygon probed his thoughts inwards, trying to mimic the core's odd ability to detect his thoughts before he voiced them. However, the core seemed to be in a cagey mood, and threw up those impenetrable walls before Porygon could get very far, radiating smugness. "Ah, ah, ah! No prying, I didn't think nosiness was one of your programs." It chuckled, before allowing the walls to slip down and an image to block Porygon's view of the world. It was a picture of pink-skinned being with very feline features, and a long tail that fleshed out into an oval at the tip. The core must have felt Porygon's curiosity, because it chuckled in a strangely neutral fashion.

"This is Mew. Never seen it before? I imagine it wouldn't be in your database, but it most certainly is in Team Rocket's. More specifically, Giovanni's personal files. I ha- I mean, _we_ have to find it. I'll tell you why once we know where it is." The core explained, sounding rather sure of itself. Porygon considered the proposition for a long moment, the core growing more impatient all the while. Eventually, it nodded its polyhedral head and continued along the way it had been going, towards the eastern coast.

"Neither of us have any idea of where we're going, and I didn't get enough information from Giovanni's computer. Use that great big database of yours and let me know what the biggest source of information – other than the two of us – is on this rock." The core interrupted quite suddenly, sounding exasperated. In the brief moment before it put up those walls again, Porygon detected more than a trace of impatience. Pondering that, the Pokémon reasoned that it was simply trying to occupy itself. It could sympathise, as it was feeling somewhat lost without an operator to give out orders or assign targets. Even as those thoughts were thought, Porygon felt a nagging sensation, and then a faint buzz sounded.

_Operator code confirmed. New mission parameters: Find Mew. _

Instantly, Porygon made a ninety degree turn without slowing down. It simply pivoted on its axis and continued blazing through the sky, leaving a faint trail of disturbed air. A map of Kanto flashed before the Pokémon's eyes, zooming in to show the mountain range north-west of Cerulean City. A small blip appeared and the map faded from view, but Porygon's navigational systems had already locked in the destination. Every action that the Pokémon took felt strangely alien, and with a peculiar sense of detachment, it knew that somehow, the core had entered a valid operating code and had slaved Porygon's systems to its own. With nothing to do except wait for the pair of them to reach Cerulean, it devoted itself to puzzling out just how much the core knew. The most confusing conundrum was how something that had begun as junk data in his own "brain" had formed into a semi-separate entity, possessing much more human qualities than it did.

The angular form zoomed along, unnoticed by the world below.


End file.
